Invidia et Humanitas
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and thirty-eight:  sins and virtues set 6 of 7  Santana knows it looks one way, but there is more to her frustrations over Brittany and Artie.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 25th cycle. Now cycle 26!_

**SINS + VIRTUES SET:** _Day 6 of 7: Invidia (Envy) + Humanitas (Kindness)_

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><p><strong>"Invidia et Humanitas"<br>Santana & Brittany, Brittana **

She should have been happy for her. In a perfect world, she would be content with the fact that the one person in this world she could honestly call her best friend was happy, that she was with someone… But Brittany Susan Pierce wasn't just her friend… Oh, no, she was much more than that. So tried as she might, Santana couldn't just be happy for her, but then… There was still something that either kept her from saying anything, or kept her from being able to speak up.

It wasn't a perfect world, and in fact what it was showing itself to be was a cruel world. The more she had to see Brittany sitting there, cuddling up to Artie, the more these thoughts would run through her head. Maybe she would let them show as nothing more than annoyance and general repulsion, and there was some of that in there, sure. But underneath all that, there was something else, something she wouldn't dream of letting anyone see on her face.

She wasn't sure which of the two, for some reason, but she was jealous of one of them. Was she jealous of Brittany for suddenly finding herself in a relatively normal relationship, or was she jealous of Artie for being in that normal relationship… with Brittany?

It was probably a bit of both. She was still trying so hard to figure out where she belonged, where she wanted to belong. Somewhere inside her, she knew, she'd always known, ever since she'd seen that blonde one sitting there, struggling with a too-tight ponytail. The problem was that it was still so deep down that she couldn't see it, not yet, not on the outside.

No matter what though, she'd understood a long time ago that she wouldn't have it easy. Still all she could think about, watching them, was how much she wished it was her… somewhere… Her who was happy, her who was loved… Whatever she'd had going with guys like Puck, or Finn, she knew it wasn't love, and it couldn't be, not like the way she hoped for. With those guys, it was just something else entirely. But, again, she tried to be for her.

How could she not be happy for her, if she cared for her this much? There was a girl, who had spent all this time being absolutely wonderful to everyone she touched… not literally touched… not all the time. For all the things she lacked in some aspects, she had so much to give. So she did absolutely and completely deserve the joy she got to live.

In the mean time though, Santana was alone, and every day that went by, still like this, she just had to ask herself… when was it going to be her, when would she get to live that? Better yet, when would Brittany understand that she could provide that for her, and that it would do just the same for her? She could be happy all she wanted, but any fool would know, what she had with Artie, and what she had with her, were two very different things, and not just because he was a guy and she… wasn't. Never mind the fact that what she had with Brittany had been going on, developing, for so much more time, it didn't matter if they looked at the pair of them now or on the first day they met, the difference was there, so obvious for all to see.

Except no one had or was seeing it. She was all by herself in her 'vision' of things, and so it could be said that she was left to her own devices. Most people were already familiar with her particular brand of lashing out, but this was different. It was one thing to snap at someone, or make some kind of mocking comment, but then there was this, what she chose to do instead.

It didn't help that she already had her issues with Rachel, or with the whole situation of the pre-Sectionals madness, but after having had to deal with her for far too long, Santana had snapped, and in that moment she had made a decision, one she hadn't yet decided as being good or bad. Even if her mother had always told her to tell the truth, she wasn't sure this would be what she meant. But she'd done it. She'd ripped the band-aid, or however you wanted to say it, and she had revealed to Rachel how she had gone and deflowered her precious Finn Hudson the previous year.

She'd gotten a satisfactory distraction out of watching everything crumble down, but even as it was still going on, she knew it was just a temporary fix, that eventually her mind would get bored with this and she would be right back to her longing for what wasn't hers but still very much wanted.

One of these days, she hoped, one of two things would happen. The first, as anyone could imagine, was the one she hoped to see come to pass, that for all her wishing and wanting and loneliness, she wouldn't be denied after all, and she would get it all, on the surface, on the outside, for all to see, just like Brittany had, now. And if that didn't happen… If that didn't happen, then she'd have to find her own version of solid ground. She'd have to stop wanting, stop hoping, rather than wishing herself right into despair.

But she wasn't ready to stop hoping, not just yet… not by a long shot.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>********always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!****** **


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